APRILIA IMPROVES IN THE ARGENTINIAN QUALIFYING TOO

EXCELLENT DAY FOR ALEIX ESPARGARÓ WHO RIDES HIS RS-GP TO THE THIRD ROW

The Argentinian 2017 MotoGPweekend continues according to predictions. In fact, the foul weather forecast punctually conditioned the sessions today. Although it was not a violent storm, the riders were still able to use the wet tyres both in FP4 and in qualifying.

A first for Aleix Espargaró, who had not yet ridden his RS-GP in the rain. The results were rather encouraging. The Spanish rider, who went straight through to Q2 thanks to his performance yesterday, had an outstanding qualifying session, taking a spot on the third row (eighth place, 1'49.323). This is a placement that ties the one achieved by the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini last year at Phillip Island.

Sam Lowes continues to improve, shaving time off his best for this track in FP3 by more than half a second. In Q1, on the other hand, a sliding crash on the first turn kept the English rookie from launching a final assault for a good spot on the grid. Sam will therefore start from the eighth row with the 22nd best time.

ALEIX ESPARGARO'

"In just two weekends we have already improved on the best race result and tied the best qualifying result for the RS-GP and that makes me proud. I would actually have preferred dry sessions because we have a lot of things to test for the race. In any case, we were able to stay very close to the leaders compared with Qatar in conditions that I had never before encountered with Aprilia. Tomorrow will be a very particular race. My goal is to start well and manage during the first laps to then exploit our potential over race distance. Compared with Qatar, given our starting position, I definitely expect to have to do a bit less overtaking!"

SAM LOWES

“We can be positive today. In FP3 I did a good run at the beginning before it started to rain and we verified that we can be competitive with the riders ahead of us in the race. After a few good laps in qualifying I was trying to push toward the end, but I went wide on the first corner and then lost the front. We still have some room to improve and we'll try to do that in warmup, which I hope will be dry, as well as the race.”‬